The present applicant has previously proposed an apparatus, in an automatic winder having a number of winding units juxtaposed thereon, wherein full packages wound to a preset amount or to a preset length are automatically doffed to transfer said packages onto a conveyor which extends at the rear of the units along each of said units. That is, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 56-132269 discloses an apparatus wherein full packages disengaged from a cradle arm are placed on a belt conveyor provided at the rear of units for storage or conveyance.
In such an apparatus, doffing is not always possible to be achieved even if a full package signal is issued to the unit in which full packages are stored on the conveyor. That is, if a new full package were to be doffed despite full packages are already placed on the belt conveyor, the new full package would be impeded by the package already placed on the conveyor, which would to hamper the succeeding winding. In a case where the conveyor is driven to automatically convey full packages, when packages are doffed at a certain winding unit during the circle of the conveyor that is, during the conveyance of full packages, the doffed full packages likewise may impinge upon packages being conveyed, and even if they are transferred by chance onto the conveyor, the attitude of packages may be disordered to hamper the succeeding steps.
Even if the doffing operation should be stopped during the conveyance of the full packages, it would take considerable time until, upon revolution of the lengthy conveyor disposed along a number of units, all the packages on the conveyor are discharged out of the automatic winder. Therefore, stopping of the doffing operation during a period of time as just mentioned is extremely inconvenient in view of the working efficiency of the winder.
Morover, where different kinds of cops are shared by separate winding units, that is, the winder is divided into some groups of units to rewind the different kinds of cops by a single winder, the following inconveniences are encountered.
That is, in the aforesaid apparatus, when wound packages are doffed, they are automatically and successively conveyed by a belt conveyor, and therefore, full packages from each of the units, which have been wound at different time depending on different times of yarn breakage, are delivered at random towards the outlet of the conveyor, and as the result, the full packages of different kinds of yarns are mixed at the outlet, which requires extra sorting work by hand. Particularly, in case of yarns analogous to one another, sorting is extremely difficult.
The aforementioned inconveniences can not be overcome due to the fact that even if timing such as winding start time is made inconsistent for every group of a plurality of units for winding cops of different kind while being shared, winding time for every unit differs with the aforesaid times of yarn breakage, and therefore, the winding time in each unit is at any rate completely random.